Why do high school seniors pick on the freshmen?

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Why do high school seniors pick on the freshmen? Do they forget that they were once freshmen?

This doesn't really happen here like it does in movies about small town USA, but, in answer to your question:

1.) Tradition (like hazing rituals)
2.) Cycles of abuse - they got theirs, now it's their turn to dish it out.
3.) To assert their dominance/authority as top of the school food chain.
4.) Because (many) teenagers are jerks.
5.) Some think it's great fun.

There's a scene in the movie "Dazed and Confused," where one of the Senior girls tells the Freshmen girls she's picking on in secret that she got hers when she was younger, and now she's obligated to do the same, and in the future those girls will have their turn.. indicating that it's nothing personal, just a tradition in their culture and she doesn't mean any true harm by it and isn't going to actually hurt them or anything. That's one of the most honest and real exchanges about this stuff in a movie, ever.

It's often because they are too immature to understand the impact it has on the other person, or deal with some form of bullying or abuse themselves. People aren't evil, just usually stupid or afraid.

Seniors think they are the "big people on campus." They are immature enough to want to "lord over" people. They like the feeling of power. They also have their own insecurities, and are scared of what might happen in the future.

Subconsciously, they feel they need to take out their frustrations on others. Freshmen are easy, convenient targets for them.

It does happen quite a bit in schools all over the United States.

Slightly off topic: Having graduated in '75 a year before the movie takes place "Dazed And Confused" is by far the most accurate portrayal of what it was like in my high school I have seen. The only thing we really did not have was the fraternities.

I teach high school and I haven't noticed a concerted effort by seniors to haze freshmen. Some hazing probably occurs, but I have always attributed this more towards bullying than anything else. My campus has a zero tolerance policy for bullying and the few bullies we've had have either adjusted their behavior or transferred out after having been suspended or placed in ISS (in school suspension ... which is basically all day detention).

I think that people who bully or haze do so because it is empowering. Bullies often have poor self images and picking on others is (a really sad) way for them to feel t hat they have some sense of control.

I personally do not understand why putting other people down makes bullies feel better but then again, I've never been a bully.

they don't like to be reminded of their stupid younger selves.

A good friend & mentor of mine has a phrase to describe this.. he calls it "Push down, pop up," whenever he notices someone putting someone down in some sort of weak psychological attempt to elevate their own standing. He doesn't like it (nor do I) and doesn't have an explanation for it, either.. but is simply aware that it exists and is able to recognize it and then either say something to that person to correct them, or completely ignore them if they're impossible to teach anything to. Those types of people in life/careers etc don't tend to have long term sustainable success if they're unable to raise themselves up to higher status by their own accomplishments and only try to do so in lame attempts to make themselves look relatively better than someone else by insulting them or diminishing their accomplishments.

Because humans are genetically 99% similar to baboons, where the alpha males abuse the young males, force the females into mating, and display warlike behavior against other baboons, including kidnapping their young.

I'm a junior but I swear the freshmen got dumber this year.

I was well-liked by students older (and younger) than me. I didn't have many friends in my own grade, or so I thought at the time.

Depends on where you go to school. My high school was 10-12th grade and there was very little to no bullying of sophomores or anyone else. For a public high school it was rather serene. On the other hand, where I went to 7-8th grade in a different state it was the opposite of serene.